White Bone Monkey King

Walk and talk.

A group of five people gradually approached Taoyuan Village.

As we get closer to Taoyuan Village.

You can see large areas of reclaimed wasteland surrounding the village.

There is no one to take care of these deserted fields.

Now there are overgrown weeds, shrubs, and vines.

The field ridges and water channels that were originally reclaimed have long been buried by these tall weeds and disappeared.

Jin An held the tiger sword and opened the way ahead.

The Tiger Saber temporarily acted as a sickle in his hand.

Clear a path.

In the middle of the night, the deep mountains and old forests were extremely quiet. There were only the rustling sounds of their figures walking through the grass, and the sound of the gurgling river not far away.

The bushes in the deep mountains and old forests cover the sky and the moon, making it extremely dark. Not to mention the moonlight, even the starlight cannot shine in. The surroundings are as dark as a splash of thick ink, and only the torches in the hands of Jin An and the others serve as barely lighting.

"Little brother, why do I feel like something is wrong with this situation?"

The old Taoist priest turned around and said.

"It's indeed abnormal." Jin An muttered with his eyes open.

"We were on the cliff road at a high place, and we clearly saw people making fires and cooking here. But now, we only see large tracts of deserted fields. It's so peaceful here, so peaceful that it's a bit abnormal."

Jin An said, secretly taking a look at Yu Youzi walking beside him.

Yu Youzi had a normal expression on his face and was looking around in surprise. Occasionally he looked up at the direction of the stars and moon above his head, and occasionally looked at the geomantic omen and landscape around him. It was as if he had come to Taoyuan Village for the first time. He didn't show anything unusual.

The old Taoist priest looked at Li Guards at this time and asked doubtfully: "Donor Li, are you sure there are no omissions in the story you told about Headless Village?"

"Didn't you say that after that group of traveling businessmen came to Taoyuan Village, people here were busy, people were busy in the fields, children were laughing and running around on the dirt roads in the countryside, and cocks and dogs were crowing in the countryside."

The old Taoist priest looked around at the darkness and silence. They seemed to be walking in a cemetery, and continued: "As promised, the villagers of Taoyuan Village have simple folk customs and are hospitable. We have been entering the boundary of Taoyuan Village for so long, so we should leave quickly. After crossing the deserted fields and entering the village, why didn’t I see even a single hospitable villager?”

At this time, Lian Yuyouzi also frowned and said, "I have also heard about the story of Taoyuan Village that Benefactor Li told. Pindao, it is indeed very different from the situation we are encountering now."

"The new headmaster, could it be that this is not Taoyuan Village?"

"Is there any other place in Taoyuan Village?"

Jin An thought as he walked: "We saw fireworks here on the mountain. It can't be fake. It can't be that we are collectively hallucinating, right? Since we are all here, we can only continue to look deeper. ."

During the next journey, the five of them walked through the deserted fields for a while, and then found that the earth and rocks under their feet began to gradually become flat and hard.

The soles of the shoes rubbed hard on the ground.

Rubbing away the shallow layer of soil that no one has visited all year round, the rural gravel road below was exposed. It seemed that they had finally walked out of the ridge area of ​​Taoyuan Village and had already embarked on the gravel road into the village.

There were sparse bushes in front of them, and under the hazy moonlight, the blurred and dark outline of the village could gradually be seen.

"It seems that is Taoyuan Village." Jin An said.

The journey was peaceful.

Not to mention the feast of headless corpses.

They didn't even see the lights of cooking fires that they had seen on the mountain. The village was extremely dark and quiet.

Xixisuosuo——

Stepping on the weeds, the five people finally arrived at Taoyuan Village. It turned out that this was a desolate and abandoned dead village with nothing.

Dozens of dilapidated stone houses are scattered around, covered with wet and slippery green moss and wall-crawlers.

The stone pavement underfoot was covered with a thick layer of black leather.

There are old tree roots sprouting from the ground under these stone roads. If you are not careful, you can trip someone. You might think it is a ghost stumbling in the middle of the night.

Many stone houses have collapsed.

A group of five people walked in this dilapidated and desolate village, looking small and cold.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

In the empty village, the sound of footsteps can be heard far away, crisp, empty, and depressing. Walking in a deserted village in the mountains is like walking among the tombstones in a mass grave.

"It's strange, these houses are so strange. Why do they all face east and west instead of north and south?" The old Taoist priest with old arms and legs and the weakest fighting ability held a torch and walked in the middle of the crowd, muttering all the way. Muttering.

"There is a saying among the people that if the door faces south, the children and grandchildren will not be cold; if the door faces west, the children will be noisy and cry. This means that the house with the door facing west has poor lighting and cannot see the sun all year round. Therefore, the house is cold and cold, and it is easy to breed poisonous snakes and snakes. Millipedes and other shade-loving poisonous insects take up residence in your home and won’t leave.”

"As for the door facing west, making noise and crying, it is said that newborn babies can see things that ordinary people cannot see, so they often cry incessantly."

"This village doesn't look like a mansion for the living, but more like a ghost house built specifically for the dead..."

When he said this, the old Taoist priest seemed to have thought of something, and suddenly ran into a half-collapsed stone house with the door missing long ago, followed by Jin'an and others.

As a result, I saw several black coffins placed in the stone house, and the atmosphere suddenly became gloomy.

Those coffins looked to have been there for many years. The coffin boards had been exposed to rain all year round, became damp and moldy, and were badly faded and rotted. You could even vaguely see the bones and rotten linen clothes inside.

This discovery immediately surprised several people.

They randomly checked a few nearby stone houses, and sure enough, there were black coffins in each house.

The black coffin means that the corpse buried in it is that of a person who died violently, a person who died in vain, and a person who died unjustly.

Some homes have three coffins.

In some homes, there are more than ten coffins, occupying the entire room.

At first glance, it seems that the whole family, young and old, are dead.

The entire Taoyuan Village is a ghost house village! The old Taoist priest actually got it right!

"Taoist Priest Jin'an, Taoist Chen, and Taoist Yuyouzi, come and see this coffin. Why do I feel that the color of this coffin is getting more and more wrong? Why does it look newer than the other coffins?"

Li Weiwei, who was standing next to a coffin with a torch in hand, studying it with great interest and not afraid of life at all, suddenly shouted out in surprise.

In this house, there are a total of twelve coffins, some big coffins and some small coffins. The adults are buried in the big coffins, and the children are buried in the small coffins.

Because there were too many coffins to fit in the house, they were even stacked on top and bottom.

Just now, they were only busy checking whether there were coffins in each house. Under the dark light, they did not notice the different colors of the coffins.

This time, after being reminded by Li Huwei's sharp eyes, they noticed that the color of the coffin in front of them was indeed different from the other coffins.

With the unusual discovery of this coffin, everyone began to examine all twelve coffins in the house.

"This coffin is also a different color."

"Little brother, I know the color of the coffin here is relatively new."

"Supreme Taiyi rescued Ku Tianzun, and Pindao also found a coffin with a newer color..."

Among the twelve black coffins, less than half were slightly newer in color than the other coffins. Now, needless to say, everyone realized that there was something wrong with these coffins.

"Could these newer coffins be added later?"

"Could it be that the descendants of Taoyuan Village who left the mountains came back later? It is said that fallen leaves return to their roots, and people return to their hometowns after death. After people die outside, they must bring their bodies back to Taoyuan Village for burial before they can rest in peace?"

Standing next to the eerie coffin, Li Huwei guessed.

Li Huwei looked at so many coffins in front of him, especially since there was a strange smell in the room. He didn't feel nervous or taboo at all. Instead, he surrounded these coffins with a thick line of admiration.

Jin An refuted Li Huwei's conjecture: "The black coffin can only bury people who died suddenly. They did not die of a normal life or died of illness in a foreign land. Only by opening the lid of the coffin can you see what's inside."

After Jin An spoke, he looked at the old Taoist priest: "Old Taoist, I know that your Tai Chi Bagua trousers are lined with tarpaulin, and there are some incense candles in your Tai Chi Bagua trousers. You take out some incense candles, and we will worship the dead, and then Open the coffins today to see what mysteries are hidden in these coffins."

The old Taoist priest said okay, and then like magic, he took out a lot of candles, incense sticks, and even a lot of yellow paper from the seemingly ordinary Tai Chi Bagua bag.

This reminded Jin An of the treasure bag...

The old Taoist priest is naturally familiar with the procedures and rituals for worshiping the dead.

He asked Guard Li to find a few rocks, set up a fire pit in a dark house full of coffins, and then began to light yellow paper and burn it to the souls in the room.

Then, the old Taoist priest lit a candle in the open space in front of each coffin.

If it is a two-tiered coffin, a candle is placed on the ground and a candle is placed on the top of the coffin.

Then he lit the incense stick.

In the coffin room, which was filled with a damp and musty smell, the old Taoist priest began to insert an incense stick into the coffin of each coffin.

After that, the coffin will be opened and the autopsy will be conducted!

The first ones to open the coffins were the coffins with newer colors. Naturally, Jin An and Li Huwei, two martial arts practitioners with some strength, came to pry the coffins.

"Taoist Master Jin'an, you said that we disturbed the deceased's sleep. The moment we pushed the coffin lid open, would a pair of hands stretch out from the coffin and demand our lives?"

Li Huwei and Jin An stood on both sides of the coffin. This was the first time in his life that he had dug up a human grave and dug up a human coffin.

Cha——

Click click click——

Boom!

The coffin lid fell heavily to the ground. There was no fake corpse as imagined. A strange smell that had been sealed in the coffin for a long time spurted out. The smell was a bit strong. Li Huwei almost fell over due to the smell, and he ran away on the spot.

Jin An has experienced these scenes many times and has long been accustomed to it. He stood still with a calm expression and curiously looked at a dead but not rotten corpse lying in the coffin. The corpse was dead but not rotten. This was a sign of evil.

"There is actually no funeral spirit in this coffin. The person in this coffin has never been buried after death." The old Taoist priest and Yu Youzi gathered around the coffin, each holding a torch in their hands.

The speaker is Yuyouzi.

Inside the coffin was the corpse of a middle-aged man. Under the flickering firelight of the torch, the facial features on his face were twisted ferociously in the flickering firelight.

In fact, the corpse in the coffin remained motionless. This was actually a visual difference caused by the shadow of the fire.

"It actually has a head, not a headless corpse. I thought the headless village was full of headless corpses."

The old Taoist priest held a torch and looked at the corpse in the coffin in wonder.

At this time, Guard Li, who had tied a piece of cloth around his mouth and nose, also came over to look at the corpse with a torch in his hand: "Taoist Priest Yuyouzi, what is burial gas? What is the difference between burial gas and the smell of corpses?"

Yuyouzi patiently explained in detail: "The mountains, rivers and land all have their own pulse, which may be subtle or erratic, or as grand as a thoroughfare. In layman's terms, it means Feng Shui acupoints, finding the Yang house, and settling the Yin house."

"Wood can breathe. Burial coffins will absorb some Qi from the flowing mountains and rivers, and over time they will take on some funerary Qi. Ordinary people cannot see the funerary Qi. You can simply smell the earthy smell of the coffin. Determine whether the coffin has been buried. Of course, this identification method is sometimes prone to errors, but it is the simplest identification method that is better than nothing."

Next, Jin An and the others opened the coffins one by one, and found that the newer-colored coffins were filled with dead bodies, including men and women, old and young.

"Little brother, have you noticed?" The old Taoist priest looked at Jin An.

"The villagers of Taoyuan Village fled to the mountains to escape the war a long time ago. They rarely communicated with the outside world. Logically speaking, their clothes should be very old-fashioned. But I don't think it is a good idea to open several coffins in a row. The corpse and the clothes on his body are all the styles of Kang Dingguo in recent years? They are not ancient at all."

After what the old Taoist priest said, everyone really discovered such a detail.

The old Taoist priest continued: "Is it true that some villagers from Taoyuan Village later walked out of the mountains and lived outside? And then after they died in other places, they were brought back to Taoyuan Village to return to their roots?"

"It doesn't make sense. Since they were brought all the way back to the village, why not bury them and put them to rest? Is it because the burial custom in Taoyuan Village is to place a private coffin at home? I don't mind the rotting and smelly corpses. The whole family So smoked that you can’t eat or sleep?”

"Could they be the victims who accidentally entered Taoyuan Village in recent years, disappeared during the rainy season, and finally returned to Taoyuan Village on their own? But this doesn't make sense. Where did they get the coffins?" the old Taoist priest said more and more. I feel more and more confused.

"Just pry open the other older coffins and have a look." Jin An's method was simple and crude.

Boom!

The coffin lid fell heavily to the ground.

The corpse in the coffin this time was that of an old woman. Her clothes were highly rotten and tattered into tattered strips of cloth. But it could still be seen from the style that the linen clothes she wore were old-fashioned and did not belong to the styles that had become popular in Kangding in recent years. style.

Jin An's conjecture was indeed agreed by the old Taoist priest and Yu Youzi.

Both of them said that they had never seen such ancient clothes in Kangding Kingdom.

Next, Jin An and the others opened several of the oldest coffins. The corpses inside were all dressed in old-fashioned clothes. It was basically certain that there were two kinds of corpses in Taoyuan Village, one was the former Taoyuan Village villager, and the other was... They are from outside the village.

"Huh? Where is Guard Li?"

Jin An suddenly noticed that Guard Li, who had been chattering beside him, had calmed down for some time. He raised his head and looked around, and found Guard Li with his back to them. He was standing next to a new coffin with a torch in his hand, looking at the coffin motionlessly. The corpse inside seemed to have been hit by an evil spirit.

"Guard Li, what are you looking at?"

"Are you OK?"

Jin An walked over with concern.

Unexpectedly, Guard Li, who was holding a torch, looked up at Jin An who was approaching with a complex expression.

"Taoist Master Jin'an, I think I know where the corpses in these new coffins come from..."

"No wonder I said he looks so familiar. I recognize this man. He comes from the Zhang family in Lingqian Township! He is the master of the Zhang family, the Zhang family's father. When Mr. He and his eldest wife returned to their hometown for the New Year, the He family and the Zhang family held a banquet. I have met Mr. Zhang several times!"